Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#101

Post by vit05 » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:15 AM UTC

LarryDarrell wrote: post #44

He at least showed us that waving a smartphone in the face of regulators and the public was the next best thing to a Jedi mind trick. waves smartphone "Uber is not a taxi service." -"Uber isn't a taxi service" waves smartphone "There is no need to regulate us as a taxi service." -"There's no need to regulate them like a taxi service." waves smartphone "Uber drivers are not employees." -"These drivers are not employee…

>regulators and the public

My question is: Why do we need separate this two "faces"? And if we need, even when they want the same thing, should we have both?

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#102

Post by craigching » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:16 AM UTC

remarkEon wrote: post #96

forapurpose wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs is a great point, for the other argument. Jobs didn't break the law, but he disrupted multiple industries from computers to phones to music to retail.

You’re absolutely right. And Travis needs to be criticized for that (and he is). If the question, though, is about judging a company’s contribution to society based on how morally upstanding the founder is I think the point I’m trying to make still stands.

> contribution to society

I think it’s too early to judge Uber’s “contribution to society” when the investors are basically footing the bill for all of Uber’s customers. Let’s see Uber make a profit and it still be less costly/better service to what consumers get now and then we can talk about their contribution to society.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#103

Post by dawhizkid » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:18 AM UTC

Travis Kalanick has spent his entire career in P2P space...wouldn’t be surprised if his next move is an ICO!

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#104

Post by bogomipz » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:25 AM UTC

volgo wrote: post #76

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34

Happy for him. I can only imagine how much being ousted from a company he created and raised to its current level must have hurt. I do not look fondly at what a pain local transport was in cities without public transport (and even those with), and it is Travis (yes, Travis first, Uber second) that led this paradigm shift. We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable.…

Exactly this. People sit comfortably in their morals while enjoy the huge benefits brought about by Uber. Things are comfortable because people like Travis were willing to take the blame on the wrong side of history and forge ahead anyways. We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans. They also build an entire ecosystem that gained wealth from exploiting…

>"Things are comfortable because people like Travis were willing to take the blame on the wrong side of history and forge ahead anyways."

Wait what? What did he take the blame for exactly? Were the sexist comment making, the berating of his own Uber driver, or Greyball things that were necessary for ride sharing to become successful? I think most people are quite capable of being able to separate ride sharing the technology from a ride sharing technology company's CEO. Ill feelings for the latter do not imply ill feelings for the former.

>"We all sit comfortably in the Bay Area because our ancestors murdered and stole lands from Native Americans."

"We all?" Wow. You live in quite a bubble if you really believe that everyone who reads HN lives in the Bay Area or is an American. Or has ancestors that killed native Americans. What an incredibly outrageous statement and comparison. Speak for yourself.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#105

Post by lurr » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:27 AM UTC

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #34

Happy for him. I can only imagine how much being ousted from a company he created and raised to its current level must have hurt. I do not look fondly at what a pain local transport was in cities without public transport (and even those with), and it is Travis (yes, Travis first, Uber second) that led this paradigm shift. We can debate about Uber's business practices until the cows come home, but this is undeniable.…

Which part of blazing a trail excuses having execs go to India to try and obtain medical records to discredit a woman accusing a driver of Rape?

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#106

Post by adjkant » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:32 AM UTC

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #97

jachee wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't allegations of sexual harassment and/or legally-questionable business practices.

> It wasn't allegations of sexual harassment The "sexual harassment" claim was for an employee (or employees), it wasn't him who sexually harassed someone. There is sexual harassment everywhere. Probably at your company too, it's just that people wanted to see Uber fail, and that's why he's become the sacred cow. I'm not saying he did a great job dealing with these issues. I'm saying a lot of the things Uber was accu…

> it's just that people wanted to see Uber fail, and that's why he's become the sacred cow.

The sexual harassment did not come out because people wanted to see Uber fail. People want Uber to fail because it came out, and the extent of it.

Extent is a very important factor. This was not "a person was sexually harassed once at a company", which does indeed happen at many places. This was a larger pattern and intrinsic problem. You're downplaying that by insinuating that all of this is because there was a target on Uber's back. There are good reasons people want to see them fail.

> I'm saying a lot of the things Uber was accused of was something that EVERY other company does. You just aren't aware of it.

Um, no. There are some more common than others, sure, but few companies were as bad as Uber was. Every company does not steal IP from other companies. Every company does not create software to evade law enforcement. Every company does not pay hackers to delete data. Every company does not hire psychologists in an attempt to manipulate drivers. The list goes on.

You can argue that Kalanick deserves credit for his idea and perhaps even the overall effects in a utilitarian argument, but sweeping under the rug the bad reveals your bias very quickly. All of your posts on this thread are basically trying to defend him directly or indirectly while adding in a clause basically saying "well he wasn't perfect". Let's not erase the bad because he may have done something good, just as we shouldn't erase the good.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#107

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:34 AM UTC

heymijo wrote: post #60

misun78 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for providing a balanced view that’s so often missing on anything Uber related on HN. There is no denying that Travis threw ethics out of the window and took his paranoia way too far and never matured into a peacetime CEO. But every time a HN user takes an Uber, Lyft, Via, Grab, Ola etc etc you can thank Travis for his ruthlessness in fighting some of the most powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of…

That's not entirely true. Lyft paved the way for UberX.

[deleted]

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#108

Post by baldajan » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:34 AM UTC

adjkant wrote: post #84

baldajan wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t have to last forever, it just has to last longer than the competitor.

This isn't intrinsically true. If they raise the prices, does the market go away? If they are able to outlast and go to self-driving cars, how profitable is that business when factoring in competition, possible regulation, or it even becoming a public utility?

You’re underestimating the current oligarchy that exists. That’s why net neutrality is dead. You’re right, it’s not intrinsically true, but it’s pretty damn close to it...

Side note: big companies generally die because they don’t take a real threat seriously, and by the time they do, it’s too late.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#109

Post by misun78 » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:35 AM UTC

forapurpose wrote: post #91

misun78 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Uber employee who has seen the company fight one battle over another for the last 4 years, he absolutely deserves most of the credit (and conversely all the blame from the fallouts). Uber formulated the following approach to get ridesharing in the hands of everyone: 1. Operate in legal grey areas to get a product infront of consumers. Build a large enough network of riders and drivers to prove the product marke…

Many businesses have 'disrupted' industries, and almost all without behaving like Uber and Kalanick. Airbnb is a simple example. Your description left out buying off politicians and breaking the law. > taxi cartels The picture of taxi owners as powerful doesn't at all match what I know. It's a shibboleth promoted by Uber.

> The picture of taxi owners as powerful doesn't at all match what I know. It's a shibboleth promoted by Uber.

You should read this then - https://priceonomics.com/post/47636506327/the-tyranny-of-the....

You may be confusing taxi drivers with taxi companies owning and selling medallions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Taxi drivers have traditionally been thoroughly exploited from having to either put all their wealth at risk from buying an overpriced medallion, or through having to work the first x hours a day simply to break even from mandatory fees. Ask a former yellow cab driver in NYC who converted to Uber to understand which company treats them better.

Re: Uber Co-Founder Travis Kalanick Said to Plan Sale of 29% of Stake

#110

Post by Consultant32452 » Fri, Jan 05, 2018, 4:39 AM UTC

ejstronge wrote: post #38

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #32

Good for him. This is probably an unpopular opinion here, but I feel bad for this guy. Could have built a really great empire, and he probably would have if it was ten years ago. But things are changing so fast nowadays and the masses have a lot of power (maybe too much than they deserve) and Uber unfortunately was at the wrong place at the wrong time. When I talk to real people in the real world (not Twitter trolls…

Perhaps the 'real people in the real world' would be offended and stop using Uber if they knew of Kalanick and his team's doings, not the least of which has been the intimidation and attempt to discredit a rape victim. EDIT: I appear to be mis-remembering Uber's actions - they did not initially share their denial of the victim's experiences with her, per the accounts I've found. In this setting, 'intimidation' may be…

>Perhaps the 'real people in the real world' would be offended and stop using Uber if they knew of Kalanick and his team's doings

I haven't stopped using them. But then, I buy Apple products manufactured with suicidal slave labor, use fossil fuels in my car, eat meat, etc. I suspect you probably do plenty of things that are someone else's pet issue too. WRT Uber I have some minimal faith left in "the system" that whatever legal issues need to be taken care of will. In the meantime, I will continue to use products and services that provide a good value in my life.